Saturday, May 28, 2011

Two "democratically elected" leader quotes are below. The first is from French President Nicholas Sarkozy at the G8 meeting (reported 5-24-11):

Democratic governments "are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people, to forget this is to take the risk of democratic chaos and hence anarchy."

The next is from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a purveyor of military interventions on behalf of U.S. corporate interests (Anglo-American Oil) in Iran and Guatemala (United Fruit):

"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."

Military interventionist Sarkozy could learn from the past, but that's so trite, even passe for this crop of world leaders. Eisenhower stated:

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

President Obama and Sarkozy led the race toward war on Libya. They claimed to act on behalf of defenseless civilians. However, their method for intervention, war, carries a huge loss of innocent lives. There are the direct deaths from off course missiles and unexploded ordinance, like cluster bomblets.

Add indirect deaths caused by conditions of war, lack of sanitation, safe drinking water, and access to food, medicines and health care. These cause the majority of civilian deaths, a fact well known by war makers. Iraq paid numerous prices for Western style freedom. One admitted by Secretary of State Madeline Albright was the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under UN sanctions and an imposed "no fly zone." That's a fraction of the total price.

Eisenhower came to rue war:

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.

Eisenhower also warned about the influence of the "military-industrial complex," which morphed in the current "government-corporate monstrosity," fed by decades on federal budget steroids. These factors intersect in NATO's Libyan intervention. Who knew a rag tag group of Libyan rebels had such impressive corporate skills?

Sarkozy's derided "social media" helped Middle Eastern citizens get their government back from U.S. allied dictators, however briefly. Sarkozy and Obama look like Eisenhower, before his hard earned wisdom. The corporate oriented War Brothers bear watching. Consider Eisenhower's words:

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

The neutral internet could be used for that very purpose by "democratic governments."

Update 6-12-11: President Obama sent his Assistant Attorney General and Internet lawyer to the Bilderberg Group meeting, where controlling the internet was clearly a topic. So much for democracies and free speech. Sarkozy believes speech "that matters" is by those in power.

Monday, May 16, 2011

It was on Sunday afternoon that the drama of at last netting “Geronimo” – the code name given to Bin Laden for the operation – began. Obama, Clinton, Gates, Donilon, Brennan and a few others huddled in the White House Situation Room. A video and audio link connected them to Leon Panetta, the CIA director in Langley, Virginia, who would talk them through what was going on in Pakistan in real time, beginning with the helicopters carrying the Seals clattering through the night sky and arriving above their target.

“They’ve reached the target,” Panetta began, according to one version reported by the New York Times. Minutes later, he added: “We have a visual on Geronimo.” Finally, they heard Panetta say: “Geronimo EKIA (enemy killed in action).” Still nobody said anything. Then Obama looked up and said simply, “We got him”.